HARPSWELL — They think Pegleg Pete lost his foot to a clam, but Harpswell resident Ruth Weeks said she’s not exactly sure how the Potts Point seagull lost the limb.

“(A neighbor) told me that when she first moved in, she would see him with a clam attached to his foot,” Weeks said. “So, we think he must have gotten his foot stuck in a clam. Eventually, the clam came off, and so did the foot.”

As the gull squawked from a perch atop a neighbor’s chimney Thursday afternoon, Weeks cast out bread crumbs for the bird she said she’s fed for around 15 years.

But Petey has grown more skittish recently, Weeks said, and the spring season provided its own distractions. Weeks said the gull perched next to Petey on the chimney was his mate.

“And when he’s in love, he doesn’t act so nice,” Weeks said.

Weeks said that Petey visits a few homes in the neighborhood, but makes his squawking known on her porch when he’s not been fed for a few days.

Weeks said she’s tried for years to find out more about the birds, but the information on the Internet is not too detailed, and ornithologists and bird enthusiasts don’t spend much of their time focused on the species, she said.

Called “rats with wings” or “pigeons of the sea” by detractors, seagulls more often spur annoyance than the kind of affection Weeks has cultivated for Pegleg Pete and his kin.

“What I want to know is where do they go at night.” Weeks said. “They don’t stay here on the mainland, I know that.”

dfishell@timesrecord.com

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